Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for Records on Biden FISA Spying on President Trump

We’re looking to uncover more details of the Biden administration’s misuse of government agencies to target and perhaps spy on President Trump.

Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records regarding Biden era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) subpoenas, warrants, court orders and other authorizations obtained to surveil President Trump (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-01969)).

In July 2018, a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit forced the release of the FISA warrant applications targeting Carter Page, who had been a Trump campaign adviser. This was the first time in history that such FISA records were publicly released. (The following month, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the FISA spy warrant applications targeting Page.)

Our legal team sued after the Justice Department failed to respond to a May 2, 2025, FOIA request for:

Copies of proposed and/or final subpoenas, warrants, court orders (including but not limited to any grand jury, state or federal court, FISA and FISC), or other authorizations obtained to surveil Donald Trump, or any other person or entity in any investigation where Donald Trump was the target of the investigation from January 20, 2021, through January 20, 2025. This includes but is not limited to surveillance of electronics, cloud-based accounts, phone records, and wiretaps.

Copies of all responses to the above-mentioned applications in which the authorizing body (court or grand jury, etc.) notified the FBI or Justice Department that it would not grant the proposed applications or recommended changes. If any such responses were provided orally, rather than in writing, please provide copies of FBI or Justice Department records memorializing or otherwise referencing the relevant responses.

Copies of all orders relating to the above-mentioned applications, whether granting or denying the applications and certifications, denying the orders, modifying the orders, granting the orders, or other types of orders.

I have zero doubt – every reason to believe – the Biden gang was spying on Trump and his team. The Justice Department should follow federal FOIA law and release all documents about such abuse as soon as possible.

We have several FOIA lawsuits related to the unprecedented prosecutorial abuse and weaponization targeting Trump.

In March 2025, we sued the Justice Department for details of any investigations, inquiries, or referrals concerning potential misconduct of any person working for Special Counsel Jack Smith (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-00801)).

In March 2025, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. The court also ordered Willis to detail how the records were found and the reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly found in response to a Judicial Watch request and lawsuit for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. Previously, the Superior Court in Fulton County, GA, issued an order granting $21,578 “attorney’s fees and costs” in the open records lawsuit for communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. We received payment (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)). 

In February 2025, federal court ordered the Justice Department to provide information on communications between Special Counsel Jack Smith and District Attorney Fani Willis regarding the prosecution of then-former President Donald Trump. The U.S. Justice Department had continued to object to providing any information even after its prosecutions against Trump were shut down (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 23-cv-03110).

In February 2024, the Justice Department asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that is targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-01485)).

Through the New York Freedom of Information Law, in July 2023, Judicial Watch received the engagement letter showing New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Did State Department Compile Dossiers on Trump Team!

Joe Biden’s censorship operation was compiling files on his political enemies from the Trump world. We’re suing to reveal the details.

Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. State Department for all records that allege President Trump or any current or former member of his cabinet are “purveyors of disinformation” (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:25-cv-01978)).

Our complaint states:

According to media reports on April 30, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department labeled a member of President Trump’s cabinet as a purveyor of disinformation, compiling a dossier of social media posts from the unnamed cabinet member. See, e.g., “Rubio says State had dossier accusing Trump Cabinet member of disinformation,” The Hill, April 30, 2025 (available at https://thehill.com/video/rubio-says-state-had-dossier-accusingtrump-cabinet-member-of-disinformation/10674871/ )

We sued after State failed to respond to a May 1, 2025, FOIA request for records, including those of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), about social media posts of any current or former member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, to include Trump himself, alleged to constitute misinformation, disinformation, or malign influence. We also asked for any guidance or policy documents.

During the April 30, 2025, cabinet meeting, Rubio said: “We had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans.”

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia Subcommittee, said at a hearing in April about the center: “The GEC [Global Engagement Center] was initially authorized for the statutory purpose of countering foreign propaganda and disinformation efforts. Despite that mandate, for years the GEC instead deployed its shadowy network of grantees and sub-grantees to facilitate the censorship of American voices …”

In March, we filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States concerning our lawsuit asserting that the California Secretary of State retaliated against us because of an accurate election integrity video posted to YouTube just before the 2020 Election (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Shirley Weber, in her official capacity as Secretary of State of the State of California (No. 2:22-cv-06894)). The California Secretary of State used its well-established working relationship with Big Tech to have YouTube remove and censor our video.

This is not our first challenge of government censorship.

One Judicial Watch lawsuit has uncovered numerous records showing the government working with outside groups to censor free speech:

• In November 2024, we uncovered records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing an extensive effort by government and non-government entities to monitor and censor social media posts on fraud during the 2020 election.
• In June, Homeland Security records from this case showed state election officials in the days before and after the 2020 election flagging online content deemed “misinformation” and sending it to the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a DHS-funded nonprofit, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a division of DHS, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was created to flag online election content for censorship and suppression.
• In December 2023, Homeland Security records showed a close collaboration between CISA and the leftist EIP to engage in “real-time narrative tracking” on all major social media platforms in the days leading up to the 2020 election.
• In November 2023, additional Homeland Security records showed government involvement in the EIP pressure on Google, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms to censor “disinformation.” (Judicial Watch Inc. vs. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-03560 )).

In August 2024, we received records from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) revealing that it was trolling on social media and reporting on alleged “domestic violent extremism” (DVE).

Judicial Watch Sues for Collusion Documents of Arizona AG and Jack Smith

We continue to dig into the lawfare against President Trump.

Judicial Watch just filed a lawsuit against Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes for her communications with former Special Counsel Jack Smith (Judicial Watch v. Kristin Mayes and Arizona Department of Law (CV 2025-020674).

We are alleging:

On January 13, 2025 several media outlets reported that Attorney General Mayes had formally requested case documents from U.S. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's criminal investigation into President Donald Trump regarding the 2020 presidential election.

12News reported that “Mayes said the documents could ensure defendants in Arizona's fake electors case would be held accountable.” https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/arizona-attomey-general-requests-jack-smiths-case-documents-on-trump/75-0d415bb9-42a2-4e55-86c4-086db68ecd75

We filed the Arizona Public Records Law complaint in the Superior Court of Arizona after the attorney general failed to respond to a January 13, 2025, request for:

Any communications and/or documents with Jack Smith and/or the DOJ Special Counsel group/team from January 1, 2022, to the completion of this request.

Collusion against President Trump by Democratic politicians with Jack Smith and the weaponized Biden Justice Department are of great public interest. Attorney General Mayes is acting as if she has something to hide.

In April we filed a lawsuit against Mayes, who seemed to have used her office for political purposes in threatening a prosecution of President Trump on the eve of the 2024 presidential election. Only one document was found (and kept secret) relating to a criminal investigation, while dozens of media-related documents were revealed (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Kris Mayes et al (No. CV 2025 00675)).

In March we sued the Justice Department for details of any investigations, inquiries, or referrals concerning potential misconduct of any person working for Special Counsel Jack Smith (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-00801)).

In March Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. The court also ordered Willis to detail how the records were found and the reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly disclosed in response to a Judicial Watch request and lawsuit for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. In January we were awarded $21,578 for “attorney’s fees and costs” incurred in the case. The court previously found Willis in default and stated: “The Court finds Defendant [Willis, in her official capacity] is in default and has been since 11 April 2024” (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).

In January, a federal court ordered the Justice Department to provide us with information on communications between Smith and Willis regarding the prosecution of then-former President Donald Trump. In May, the Justice Department was directed to search text messages from the Special Counsel’s Office for responsive records (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 23-cv-03110).

Illegals at Meat Processing Plant with Stolen IDs Screened with E-Verify

Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. Our Corruption Chronicles blog exposes the cost to legal Americans from abuse of a broken federal vetting system.

Years after Judicial Watch reported that the government’s system to verify if employees are authorized to work legally in the United States approved hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, federal authorities have uncovered widespread identity theft at a meat processing plant that used the defective tool to screen 100% of its staff. A recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite enforcement operation at Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha, Nebraska busted over 70 illegal aliens who were using stolen Social Security numbers and identities to unlawfully obtain wages, health benefits and employment authorization, according to the agency. The criminal identity theft scheme left “more than 100 real victims to face devastating financial, emotional and legal consequences,” ICE writes in its announcement of the operation.

Incredibly, Glenn Valley Foods was reportedly 100% compliant with E-Verify, a costly government database launched nearly three decades ago that screens new employees using records from various agencies to confirm candidates are in the country legally. The web-based system claims to match information provided by new hires against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) records. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) operates it because the agency is responsible for administering the nation’s lawful immigration system. The program is available to employers in every state as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. For private businesses it is voluntary but federal contractors and subcontractors must use it to vet workers. The government has for years claimed that E-Verify is “the best means available to electronically confirm employment eligibility.”

The Republican congressman (Don Bacon) who represents Omaha in the U.S. House, confirms that Glenn Valley Foods “complied with E-Verify 100%” and therefore the company is also a “victim.” Other casualties of the Omaha identity fraud ring include a Californian who has been working for nearly 15 years to restore their identity and repair financial damage caused by the identity theft of one of the illegal immigrants; A disabled person in Texas, who was unable to work, and could not collect Social Security disability payments because an illegal alien was fraudulently using their identity and earning wages at Glenn Valley Foods; A Colorado resident ordered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to repay over $5,000 after their income was falsely increased by the illegal immigrant’s identity theft; A full-time nursing student from Missouri who lost their college tuition assistance because it was fraudulently reported that they earned too much money after an illegal alien used their Social Security number for employment at Glenn Valley Foods.

Expressing frustration over the left’s narrative condemning recent immigration operations, the Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge of the Glenn Valley Foods case points out that individuals have gone on the record referring to the identity thieves arrested by his agents as “good, hardworking, and honest.” The reality is that “these so-called honest workers have caused an immeasurable amount of financial and emotional hardship for innocent Americans,” said the supervisory agent, Mark Zito. “If pretending to be someone you aren’t in order to steal their lives isn’t blatant, criminal dishonesty, I don’t know what is.” The DHS official goes on to confirm that the criminals who stole these identities did not just break the law, they upended lives. “These victims aren’t faceless statistics,” special agent Zito said. “They’re real people who are being denied healthcare and have lost educational opportunities.” Zito also revealed that the investigation is ongoing.

If in fact Glenn Valley Foods screened every single employee with E-Verify it clearly demonstrates that the system’s widely reported flaws, identified in federal audits for years, have not been corrected. Just a few years ago, a DHS Inspector General report blasted USCIS, exposing “deficiencies” that illustrate the program needs “additional capabilities” to effectively confirm that individuals are eligible for employment in the United States. At the time the DHS watchdog found that E-Verify authorized employment for about 280,000 non-U.S. citizens without using the photo-matching process to confirm their identities and that 613,000 individuals were approved without meeting USCIS’s own verification requirements. Those are considered illegal immigrants, the demographic the system is supposed to prevent from unlawfully obtaining wages in the U.S.

Until next week,