[INSIDE JW]

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES DOJ FOR EPSTEIN RECORDS SUBPOENAED BY HOUSE
COMMITTEE

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The U.S. Department of Justice is sitting on information about Jeffrey
Epstein that the public should have.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
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against the Justice Department for records subpoenaed by the U.S.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding Epstein,
the accused sex trafficker (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of
Justice
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(No. 1:25-cv-04123 )).

The Justice Department should immediately release this information.
Americans deserve the truth. It’s time to end the leaks and the
guessing games.

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Justice Department failed to respond to an August 22, 2025, FOIA
request for:

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All records provided to the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform or any member thereof in response to the subpoena
transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or about August 5, 2025.

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All records relied upon during the preparation of any response to the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoena
transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or about August 5, 2025.

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All records of communication between Attorney General Bondi or Deputy
Attorney General Blanche and any other individual or entity regarding
the Department’s response to the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform subpoena transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or
about August 5, 2025.

In August 2025, James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight
Committee, issued deposition subpoenas
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to former high-level officials including Bill and Hillary Clinton;
former U.S. Attorneys General William Barr, Alberto Gonzales, Jeff
Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Merrick Garland; and former
FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey — seeking testimony and
documents related to the investigation of Epstein. Additionally, a
subpoena was issued to the Justice Department for records related to
Epstein. For example, the subpoena cover letter
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to Gonzales states:

On July 23, 2025, the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement of the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (“Committee”)
unanimously voted to approve a motion directing the Committee to
authorize and issue a subpoena to you for a deposition. Your tenure as
U.S. Attorney General, from 2005 to late 2007, coincided with a time
period when the FBI investigated Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes, an
Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida prepared a
draft 60-count indictment of Mr. Epstein, and the U.S. Attorney’s
Office for the Southern District of Florida offered a plea bargain to
Mr. Epstein, leading to the signing of Mr. Epstein’s non-prosecution
agreement only one week after you left office. Pursuant to this
direction, please see the attached subpoena for you to appear at a
deposition on August 26, 2025.

On July 6, 2019, federal authorities arrested Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and
two days later an indictment was unsealed in the U.S. District Court
for the Southern District for New York charging him with sex
trafficking of minors and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of
minors. According to the indictment, Mr. Epstein sexually exploited
and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, Palm
Beach, and other locations. Among other things, the indictment alleged
that Mr. Epstein enticed girls as young as 14 years old to engage in
sex acts with him in exchange for money. This was not the first time
that Mr. Epstein had been investigated for committing sex crimes. In
2008, he pled guilty in Florida state court to two prostitution
offenses, and, in exchange, he and his co-conspirators received
immunity from federal prosecution through a non-prosecution agreement
that was negotiated during your time as Attorney General.

We have been actively pursuing details of the Epstein case.

In October, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
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against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records involving
any role Epstein might have played in connection with the agency, his
business dealings, travel, victim or witness information, and records
concerning his death.

In September, we sued
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the
Justice Department for communication the department had with the media
outlet Axios regarding the outlet’s “exclusives” on the release
of audio of then-President Joe Biden’s August 2023 interview with
then-Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding Biden’s handling of secret
documents and the July 2025 memo that states there is no Jeffrey
Epstein “client list.”

In a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit, a “joint status report
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filed on July 7 in federal court reported that the Justice Department
and the FBI were continuing to search for and review records in
response to our FOIA lawsuit for records regarding Epstein. The
lawsuit requests any records on the identities of clients or
associates of Epstein. The Justice Department’s disclosure is at
odds with the leaked, unsigned and undated Justice Department/FBI memo
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that suggests no
more Epstein records would be disclosed to the American public. The
memo was first disclosed late on July 6
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Also in July, we sued
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the
Justice Department for all interviews and other records provided to
the FBI by Epstein victim Virginia Louise Giuffre, who reportedly
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committed suicide on April 25, 2025.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR JACK SMITH’S EMAILS TARGETING DONALD TRUMP

We are working to find the communications between former Special
Counsel Jack Smith and the state and federal actors who took part in
the lawfare against President Donald Trump. The American people
deserve transparency about the about the abuses committed against
Trump and other Americans.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
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against the U.S. Department of Justice for Smith’s emails with
officials in Georgia, New York, and the White House, plus
congressional and law enforcement offices regarding his investigation
into then President-elect Donald Trump (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S.
Department of Justice
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(No. 1:25-cv-03849)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Justice Department failed to respond to two FOIA requests. The
first, on November 13, 2024, asks for:

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All emails of Special Counsel Jack Smith between November 5, 2024, and
November 13, 2024.

On November 21, 2024, we requested:

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All communications of any current or former member of the Smith’s
office since November 1, 2022, regarding investigation into
President-elect Trump, including those with:

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Any New York State governmental or law enforcement office

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Fulton County District Attorney’s office or Georgia secretary of
State’s office

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White House, Congressional or Senate office

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Any federal law enforcement or government office

Smith reportedly
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coordinated prosecutions of Trump with Manhattan District Attorney
Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton
County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis. The House Judiciary
Committee recently subpoenaed
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Smith for a deposition about the federal prosecutions he brought
against Trump during the Biden administration.

We are a national leader in exposing the lawfare and abuse targeting
Trump and other American citizens.

In June 2025, we sued
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes for her communications with Smith
(Judicial Watch v. Kristin Mayes and Arizona Department of Law
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(CV 2025-020674).

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

Also in March, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered
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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 Smith and the House January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v.
Fani Willis et al.
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(No. 24-CV-002805)).

NEW AIR MARSHAL ASSISTANT DIRECTOR HAS A QUESTIONABLE PAST

If you’re a frequent traveler you won’t be comforted by personnel
moves in the Federal Air Marshall Service, as our Corruption
Chronicles blog reports
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In the latest controversy to rock the Federal Air Marshal Service
(FAMS), an agency veteran, who created a wasteful VIP Congressional
Concierge and oversaw a surveillance program that put
Americans—including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi
Gabbard—with opposing political views on a terror watchlist, has
been promoted to assistant director. His name is Serge V. Potapov, and
he has risen through the ranks at FAMS despite playing a key role in
highly questionable programs and a documented history of misconduct
that put him at the center of various investigations over the years,
according to agency documents reviewed by Judicial Watch. Now Potapov,
a former U.S. Marine who recently served as a counselor to Homeland
Security Secretary Kristi Noem, is second in command at FAMS which
operates under the Transportation Security Administration (TSA),
created after 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack. Both agencies
function under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and have been
plagued by controversy and mismanagement that has left the nation
vulnerable from a security standpoint, say multiple DHS sources
interviewed by Judicial Watch over the years.

FAMS in particular has experienced tremendous instability with four
different directors
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in
around as many years and flagrant mismanagement that includes
controversial deployments of the uniquely skilled law enforcement
officers to the Mexican border to perform duties unrelated to
transportation, such as welfare checks, hospital watch and
chauffeuring illegal immigrants. TSA has admitted it does not know the
operational impact
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the air marshal border deployments had on aviation security. During
the chaos last year FAMS named a deputy director, Pauline (Polly)
Hanson, with a shady history that includes being investigated for
fraud and conflict of interest as chief of the Amtrak Police, a
federal law enforcement agency of about 500 charged with protecting
the nation’s railroad system. Hanson’s appointment rattled many
inside FAMS and raised questions about the criteria to qualify for the
top-secret clearance required for the position. Hanson stepped down
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after a few
weeks on the job because Judicial Watch exposed her record, which was
brought to our attention by the Air Marshal National Council, the
union that represents thousands of agents nationwide and has uncovered
a multitude of problems at the agency in recent years.

Now, the union is battling against another highly questionable figure
quietly elevated to assistant director at the ailing agency. As of
this week Potapov is Assistant Administrator at FAMS despite a lengthy
history of wrongdoing. His misconduct began at the Federal Air Marshal
Training Center in New Jersey where he simulated shooting a female
instructor in the head, kicked her during training, pulled her hair
and told women “You don’t belong here,” according to documents
provided to Judicial Watch by the Air Marshal National Council.
Potapov was suspended and involuntarily transferred to the
Philadelphia Field Office before being promoted to help lead the
Insider Threat Unit, which got blasted in a DHS audit for its many
failures during his leadership. An agency insider told Judicial Watch
Potapov helped build a unit later condemned as structurally broken.
Yet in 2020 he was promoted to Assistant Special Agent in Charge in
Washington D.C. where he helped create a special VIP Congressional
Concierge
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that pulled air marshals off high-risk flights so members of Congress
could get extra protection on flights that did not meet the threat
criteria, usually determined by the FBI, for air marshals. In 2021
Judicial Watch exposed the program, reporting that FAMS were yanked
from a high-risk flight so California Congresswoman Maxine Waters
could have extra security during a trip to Minnesota though she was
already covered by a four-man detail consisting of two Capitol Police
officers and two Secret Service agents. The story led to the
program’s elimination, DHS sources confirmed.

After launching the outrageous VIP Congressional Concierge, Potapov
was promoted to executive director of flight operations, which oversaw
another scandal-plagued program called Quiet Skies that secretly
surveilled Americans on flights in the name of preventing terrorism.
Hundreds of Americans, including then Hawaii Congresswoman Gabbard,
were put on a watchlist and deemed threats to national security for
holding political views against the Biden administration. In fact,
Gabbard was added to the Quiet Skies program on July 23, 2024, one day
after she criticized the Biden administration in an interview. The
Trump administration ended the Quiet Skies program over the summer and
in the fall a Senate Homeland Security committee
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confirmed the Biden administration weaponized the watch list against
everyday Americans, deeming them threats to national security simply
for holding opposing political views. As Executive Director of Flight
Operations in 2023, Potapov oversaw Quiet Skies and all global FAMS
deployments, making him a strange choice to help lead the agency.

In an internal memo announcing Potapov as his number two guy, FAMS
Director Brian C. Belcher fails to mention his sordid past, instead
promoting him as a 23-year FAMS veteran who has demonstrated
“exceptional leadership and dedication to our mission of
safeguarding the nation’s transportation system.” Belcher also
praises Potapov’s expertise and commitment to operational excellence
that make him uniquely qualified to serve in this leadership position.
The reality is much different, says David Londo, president of the Air
Marshal National Council, who says many inside the agency are
outraged. “His career provides a clear example of systemic
breakdowns in federal accountability, leadership vetting, and taxpayer
stewardship,” Londo said, pointing to Potapov’s court-confirmed
misconduct, failures documented in federal audits, warnings from a
congressional investigative unit and widespread internal concerns.

Until next week,



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