Hunter Biden Laptop
Update!
Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hunter Biden’s
Infamous Laptop
The Hunter Biden saga drags on as the
government clings to details about his laptop.
In our latest effort
to pry this information loose, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Justice for all FBI investigative records
concerning Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which contained extensive
evidence of Biden family business dealings (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:25-cv-04240)).
The
Justice Department’s refusal to release these basic investigative records
raises serious questions about transparency and potential interference in
one of the most consequential political stories in recent history. We will
fight in court to get the public the answers it is entitled to under the
law.
We sued in the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the FBI failed to
respond to a January 29, 2025, FOIA request for:
All
FBI investigative reports, witness interview summaries, memoranda, and
other records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden's laptop.
All
emails, text messages, Lync messages and other electronic communications
records related to the Hunter Biden
laptop.
IRS whistleblowers confirmed that the FBI became aware of
Hunter Biden’s laptop as early as October 2019 and verified its
authenticity in November 2019. The FBI took possession of it in December
2019.
In October
2020, through information obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop, the New
York Post began publishing
reports about the Biden family’s business arrangements.
In an August 2022 letter, Senator
Ron Johnson (R-WI) highlighted whistleblower concerns about the handling of
the FBI’s
investigation, noting that the Bureau appeared to take no visible action
for months despite possessing the verified laptop well before the 2020
presidential election.
We
have filed numerous FOIA lawsuits seeking transparency on the Hunter Biden
investigations and related matters.
In July 2025, we sued
the Justice Department for all records from the Offices of Attorney
General, Deputy Attorney General, and Associate Attorney General regarding
Joe Biden’s controversial pardon of Hunter Biden (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No.
1:25-cv-02143)).
A
hearing was held in July 2025 in the FOIA lawsuit
against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications
regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as
communications between the Bidens and several known business associates (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. National Archives (No. 1:23-cv-01432).
In February 2025, we filed a lawsuit
against the Justice Department for records and
communications regarding the Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of
Hunter Biden (Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice
(No.1:24-cv-03387)).
In June 2024, we received records from
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showing
Mike Morell, former acting CIA director under President Obama, requesting
CIA permission to publish a letter by
former intelligence community leaders stating that they believed the laptop
emails exposing Hunter Biden’s connections to Ukraine were Russian
disinformation. Morrell’s request for prepublication review was approved
in just six hours by the CIA (Judicial
Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:23-cv-01844)).
In January 2024, we filed a lawsuit
against the Justice Department for records of communications between the
FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in
elections, as well as Big Tech censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story
(Judicial
Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No.
1:23-cv-00079)).
In
October 2022, we sued
the DOJ for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory
Intelligence
Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to
members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’
investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:22-cv-02821)).
We filed a lawsuit against the
U.S. State Department on April 20, 2022, for messages sent through the SMART
(State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter
Biden (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:22-cv-01066)).
In December 2020, State
Department records
obtained through a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit showed that former U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned
in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. Previously
in this case, State Department records
included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv
between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally
Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a
Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat
corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was
serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings (Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No.
1:20-cv-00229)).
Judicial Watch Sues Boston Mayor for Details
of Mariachi Band Press Conference
At an
August 19, 2025, press conference,
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu reportedly
vowed to resist the Justice Department’s efforts to secure cooperation
from local governments with federal immigration enforcement. The event
opened with mariachi music performed for attendees as Wu positioned Boston
as a defiant “sanctuary” jurisdiction in opposition to federal
law.
To see what’s behind this event, we filed a Massachusetts
Public Records Law lawsuit
against the City of Boston for details about the press conference during
which Wu publicly defied U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s demands that
Boston comply with federal immigration law (Judicial
Watch v. City of Boston (No. 2584 cv 03395)).
We filed the lawsuit in the
Suffolk County Superior Court after the Wu administration failed to respond
to our public records request for emails of Mayor Wu and her immediate
staff about Attorney General Bondi’s demands that Boston modify its
sanctuary-city policy and cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, as well as records related to the appearance of a mariachi
band at the August 19, 2025, press conference.
U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that in September 2025 it and federal
partners arrested
more than 1,400 illegal aliens in Massachusetts – including murderers,
rapists, drug traffickers, child sex predators and members of violent
transnational criminal gangs. Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said,
“Every illegal alien we arrested during the operation was breaking U.S.
immigration law, and hundreds were violent criminals who should never have
been allowed to roam freely in our
communities.”
Mayor Wu staged a racist
political spectacle instead of cooperating with federal law enforcement –
even as dangerous criminal aliens are at large in her city. Boston
residents deserve to know why the mayor’s office refuses transparency
about this event and why city hall is stonewalling lawful public records
requests.
In
October 2025, we sued
the Office of the Mayor of Evanston, IL, for records related to obstruction
of federal immigration enforcement.
In January 2025, we sued
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office for records regarding his vow to
resist the Trump administration’s mass deportation and other immigration
law enforcement activities.
Judicial Watch Sues for FBI
Records on Hillary Clinton’s Brother, Tony Rodham
What’s
currently in the public record about the schemes of Hillary Clinton’s
little brother Tony likely just scratches the surface.
We filed a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Justice for FBI records on Hillary
Clinton’s deceased brother, Tony Rodham (Judicial
Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:25-cv-04237)).
We
sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Justice Department failed to respond adequately to a June 10, 2019,
FOIA request for FBI records about Rodham. We are asking for:
All
records related to Anthony Dean Rodham, born in August 1954 in Park Ridge,
Illinois, who died on June 7, 2019, including but not limited to:
investigative reports; 302s; witness statements; Confidential Human Source
reporting (FD 1023 forms); meetings/contacts (FD 209a forms); cables;
letterhead memoranda; and communications sent to and from FBI officials
regarding Mr. Rodham.
In August 2019, the FBI
acknowledged it had located over 13,000 pages of records responsive to the
request, as well as audio and video files that are potentially responsive
to the request. After years of delays, in May
2025, the FBI again acknowledged possession of responsive records and asked
if there was still interest. We acknowledged our continued interest in
having the request processed without modification of its scope. Having
received no further response from the FBI, we filed suit.
Clearly,
the Justice Department has been sitting on a wealth of information, and we
intend to obtain it.
Rodham for
decades used his connections with the Clintons to further his failing
career. Rodham described himself as a
“facilitator” and had a range of opportunities, like addressing Chinese
investor conferences and joining an advisory board of a company seeking
permission to mine for gold in Haiti. Among other controversies, Rodham
also pursued contracts in post-earthquake Haiti, seeking a $22 million
housing deal while Bill Clinton co-chaired the recovery commission, a
proposal that collapsed.
While Hillary Clinton was
secretary of State, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Rodham
were beneficiaries of the EB-5
cash-for-visas program, in which they raised at
least $46 million from investors for their GreenTech Automotive
electric-car company. Greentech filed for bankruptcy
in February 2018.
Through our FOIA investigations
and lawsuits we have uncovered other incidents involving
Rodham.
In August
2017, we uncovered
records from the State Department revealing repeated use of unsecured
communications for classified information and numerous examples of Clinton
Foundation donors receiving special favors from former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton’s staff.
The emails also reveal instances of Rodham seeking to leverage his
influence as Clinton’s brother. In January 2010, Confidential Assistant
Monica Hanley forwarded to Abedin a request from Rodham, on three
issues. One involved help on a “green card renewal,” another
involved a visit by someone of which Abedin said they “wanted to
regret,” and a third involved a job for someone whose CV Rodham forwarded
to State.
In July
2017, we received
records from the State Department revealing incidents of Huma Abedin,
deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
providing special State Department treatment to major donors to the Clinton
Foundation and political campaigns. The heavily redacted documents from
Abedin’s non-government account included an email from Rodham to Abedin
revealing that he acted as a go-between for a Clinton Foundation donor,
Richard Park. The records also revealed Clinton Foundation executive
Doug Band instructing Abedin to “show love” to Clinton donor Andrew
Liveris.
Billions of Tax Dollars Spent in Failed Effort to
Rebuild Afghanistan
Afghanistan
offers a clear lesson: You can’t smoothly impose Western democracy on a
quasi-feudal Third World country. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports
on the billions of your tax dollars that were haphazardly thrown at the
attempt to rebuild Afghanistan.
For nearly
two decades the U.S. government spent a breathtaking $145 billion on a
failed plan to
rebuild Afghanistan and at least $26 billion of it was lost to waste, fraud
and abuse, according to the final report published
by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The United States also left behind over $38 billion in military equipment
and military and civilian infrastructure, the audit reveals, offering
enraging details about the U.S. government’s costly debacle to restore a
terrorist nation that promptly returned to Taliban rule the moment American
troops left in 2021. Even after the Biden administration’s disastrous
military withdrawal, hundreds of millions of dollars in
humanitarian aid kept flowing into the coffers of fake
charities created by the Taliban. The terrorist group also received at
least $239
million in development assistance because the State Department did
not screen award recipients, failing to comply with its own
counterterrorism partner vetting requirements before disbursing
dozens of grants to local entities in the central Asian Islamic
nation.
“The Afghan government’s
stunningly rapid collapse in August 2021 laid bare a fragility concealed by
years of confident assertions of progress,” the new SIGAR report states.
“The gap between ambition and reality was vast, with deteriorating
conditions continually stymying objectives that proved to be
unrealistic.” Investigators blame multiple factors for the U.S. failure
to transform a war-torn, underdeveloped country into a stable and
prosperous democracy. “For example, early and ongoing U.S. decisions to
ally with corrupt, human-rights-abusing powerbrokers bolstered the
insurgency and undermined the mission, including U.S. goals for bringing
democracy and good governance to Afghanistan,” the audit says, adding
that efforts to improve Afghanistan’s economic and social conditions also
failed to have a lasting impact and that despite
nearly “$90 billion in U.S. appropriations for security-sector
assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a
sustained U.S. military presence.” The cost of the failed Afghanistan
reconstruction plan was “immense,” investigators found, and includes
tens of thousands of people— including more than 2,450 U.S.
servicemembers—killed. Many more were injured, among them more than
20,700 U.S. servicemembers, the watchdog writes.
SIGAR, which was created in 2009 and will officially shut down at
the end of January 2026, has identified at least 1,327 instances of waste,
fraud, and abuse for a total of at least $26 billion from 2002 through the
middle of 2021. The cash started flowing shortly after President George W.
Bush launched military operations in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks
as part of the war on terror. Even after Afghanistan fell back to Taliban
rule in 2021, the U.S.
remains its largest donor disbursing over $3.83 billion in humanitarian and
development assistance, much of it managed by the famously corrupt United
States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was dismantled
by the Trump administration. Nevertheless, the money is still flowing to
Afghanistan, with disbursements of $120 million in the March 2025 quarter
alone, according to the SIGAR report. Past failures have not stopped Uncle
Sam from cutting the checks. The report offers a multitude of examples of
the waste over the years, including $7.3 billion on an ineffective
counternarcotics program that did little to stem the production and
exportation of illicit drugs; $4.7 billion on a failed stabilization
project to keep insurgents out of an area after they had been expelled by
security forces; $675 million on wasteful business development programs
aimed at reducing violence to enhance stability and economic normalcy; $486
million for unused aircraft for the Afghan Air Force; $335 million for a
USAID constructed power plant that was not utilized and $85 million for an
unfinished—and never used—hotel across from the U.S. Embassy in
Kabul.
Most of the projects that seemed
legitimate were also wasteful and failed to accomplish their goal, the
final in-depth probe confirms. For instance, the U.S. allocated $90 billion
to Afghanistan Security yet the nation’s security forces collapsed
quickly without sustained U.S. Military presence. Investigators warn that
the costly failure to rebuild Afghanistan was predictable. “Unlike past
reconstruction efforts in places like post-World War II Europe or Japan
where the United States successfully rebuilt countries whose modern
economies, industry, and infrastructure had been degraded by war,
Afghanistan was a severely underdeveloped state,” SIGAR writes. “U.S.
efforts there were often
trying to create capabilities, systems, and institutions of a type and
quality the country had never possessed.”
Until next week,
