Judicial Watch Sues for Secret Service Records on Disruption at Trump Dinner

The Secret Service has a tarnished record when it comes to protecting President Donald Trump, and the American people deserve accountability from the agencies that are entrusted with the duty of guarding their president.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for U.S. Secret Service communications records related to Code Pink protesters who disrupted a dinner held by President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2025 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-04408)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Secret Service, a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, failed to respond to a September 10, 2025, FOIA request for:

1. All internal emails and text messages among USSS officials in the Presidential Protective Division regarding the presence of Code Pink protestors appearing at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab restaurant in Washington, D.C. on the evening of September 9, 2025, while President Trump and other administration officials dined there.

2. All emails sent between USSS [U.S. Secret Service] officials and any email account ending in @codepink.org.

On the evening of September 9, 2025, during President Trump’s dinner with Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other officials, a group of Code Pink activists began a protest in the restaurant by chanting slogans and waving Palestinian flags.

In July 2025, we sued the U.S. Department of Justice for all records regarding Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate Trump on July 13, 2024, (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216)).

In March 2025, we sued Homeland Security for records related to security provided for the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, PA, during which there was an assassination attempt on Trump (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-00704)).

In September 2024, following up on reports that the Biden Secret Service denied Trump’s requests for additional Secret Service protection, we filed a FOIA lawsuit for Secret Service and other records regarding potential increased protective services to Trump’s security detail prior to the attempt on his life at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, PA (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-02495)).

Criminal Aliens Were Using Arrest Warrants, Removal Orders as Legal ID

Amazing as it sounds, the Biden administration compounded the dangers of its open border lawlessness by allowing the very warrants that should have gotten criminal aliens detained or deported to be used as ID to board commercial aircraft.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for records on migrants who entered the United States from 2020 to 2025 using arrest warrants and removal orders as proof of identification (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-04414)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of Homeland Security, failed to comply with a February 26, 2025, FOIA request for:

Data reflecting the number of persons entering the United States from 2020 through 2025 who used any of the following documents as proof of identification, with the data broken out by category:

• Warrant for Arrest of Alien,
• Warrant of Removal/Deportation,
• Order of Removal on Recognizance,
• Order of Supervision,
• Notice to Appear,
• Arrival and Departure Form,
• and/or Alien Booking Record.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement forwarded our request to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which forwarded it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but no records have been forthcoming. We filed an identical FOIA request with the Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA), which has also failed to comply.

In January 2022, the Biden administration admitted that the Transportation and Safety Administration was allowing illegal immigrants to use arrest warrants as an alternative form of identification to board commercial airplanes.

In a January 31, 2022, letter to Transportation and Safety Administration Administrator David Pekoske, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) stated, “The point of an arrest warrant is for police to actively seek out and apprehend criminals. However, you have now confirmed that illegal aliens may present arrest warrants to federal officials to board commercial aircrafts.”

In November 2025, we sued Evanston, IL, Mayor Daniel Biss for records related to obstruction of federal immigration enforcement, as well as Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs for records regarding her office reportedly ordering state police and the National Guard to withhold cooperation from federal immigration enforcement authorities.

We recently pointed out that in just two states with “sanctuary” policies, nearly 9,000 criminal aliens were released from jails and prisons since January 20, defying Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers to deport them.

In October 2025, we reported on a Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF), established by President Trump on the day of his inauguration to tackle a pandemic of transnational organized crime created by the Biden administration’s “disgraceful” open border policies, had made thousands of arrests and seized over 1,000 illegal firearms, 91 tons of drugs and $3 million in currency.

Lawsuit Accuses Trump of Discrimination for Ending DEI Programs

Rooting out the Biden administration’s divisive, leftist Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs requires diligent effort, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

Spearheaded by a woman who identifies as “non-binary,” a group of federal employees who worked in specially created government Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments under the Biden administration are suing President Trump for ending the wasteful and exclusionary programs and firing them. The former government workers claim they were unlawfully dismissed because the president violated employment protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by disproportionately impacting and targeting black, women and non-binary federal employees as well as people of color and those perceived of advocating for legally protected racial and gender groups, including LGBTQ people. “While neutral on their face, these policies had an unlawful disparate impact on women and non-binary employees, and/or people of color,” reads the lawsuit filed this month in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint acknowledges that, while changes in presidential priorities are normal during an administration change, the broad DEI cuts were targeted actions intended to punish perceived political enemies like the plaintiffs in this case.

The governmentwide DEI cuts have impacted an unknown number of federal employees, but could potentially be in the thousands, according to the lawsuit. It identifies at least 40 women or non-binary individuals, and more than 40 people of color who lost their DEI government jobs under Trump. Among them is Mahri Stainnak, a non-binary (does not identify as a man or woman and uses “they” pronoun) biological woman who served as DEI deputy director in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) human resources office under Biden. Stainnak was fired for advancing initiatives for LGBTQ workers, the lawsuit says, and a fellow plaintiff for advocating for protected racial and gender groups at the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Others include an air traffic control manager who facilitated inclusivity, a public health advisor who promoted outreach to LGBTQ communities, a DHS worker who ensured language competency at the border, and a forestry employee who ensured equitable access to federal lands. The anti-DEI directives reveal that people targeted for termination include substantially more women and/or non-binary workers and an over-selection of people of color with a substantial over-selection of black employees, the complaint states.

For example, the lawsuit says, at least 97 female and 37 male employees were cut from a DHS civil rights office characterized by DOGE as corrupted by DEI. “When compared to the number of women in the federal workforce (approximately 918,127) vs. men in the federal workforce (approximately 1,122,155) or even compared within DHS (69,019 vs.130,616), the adverse impact is stark and disproportionate,” the complaint states, adding that “the impact on employees of color is similarly evident.” To back this up the lawsuit reveals that 41 black employees and 71 white employees were fired from the same unit with approximately 383,573 black employees and around 1,213,968 white employees, constituting what the plaintiffs allege is a “disparate impact.” As a result of the Trump administration’s discriminatory patterns and practices, women and people of color have been systematically harmed, the complaint states, alleging that the former DEI workers were “targeted due to their protected race and/or gender status.”

The governmentwide DEI fiasco was created when Biden strong armed all federal agencies to implement plans to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities with a 2021 executive order. The order included a mandate for all government agencies to establish an equity team and proactive engagement with members of underserved communities through culturally and linguistically appropriate listening sessions. Biden also established a White House Steering Committee on Equity composed of senior officials who coordinated the government’s sweeping efforts to promote his leftist agenda. The Treasury Department named its first ever racial equity chief, a veteran La Raza official who spent a decade at the nation’s most influential open borders group. The Department of Defense (DOD) used outrageous anti-bias materials that indoctrinated troops with anti-American and racially inflammatory training on diversity topics. The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) created an equity commission to address longstanding inequities in agriculture. The nation’s medical research agency launched a special minority health and health disparities division that issued a study declaring COVID-19 exacerbated preexisting resentment against racial/ethnic minorities and marginalized communities.

On the day of his inauguration President Trump signed an executive order terminating all government DEI and environmental justice offices and positions, calling them “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” that resulted in “immense public waste.” The fired DEI government employees accuse the president of having disdain for DEI and associating it with political ideologies he disfavors, such as Marxism or the radical left as well as people of color from the Democratic party such as Kamala Harris.

 

Happy New Year!

This is the season of resolutions for the coming year, and the practice must speak to something deep within us because its roots are ancient.

The Babylonians are said to have been the first to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar established January 1 as the beginning of the new year. The month is named for Janus, the two-faced god who symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future.

Today’s resolutions are typically about health and personal improvement. Let me propose, however, that we also resolve to stand strong together against the ill winds blowing across our land.

For instance, as you know from my prior updates, Judicial Watch will be going back to the Supreme Court of the United States in 2026 for another landmark case – this one to challenge Mississippi’s lawless practice of counting ballots received up to five days after Election Day. At the heart of this case is a simple question: When is an election really over?

Looking back at history, as the New Year of 1942 began, Hitler held Europe, Nazi U-boats prowled the Atlantic, and America had received a heavy blow at Pearl Harbor.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in the United States and spoke to our Congress about our common enemies:

They have certainly embarked upon a very considerable undertaking…. What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

Later, on a train in New York traveling near President Franklin Roosevelt’s home at Hyde Park, he called staff and reporters to the dining car. He wanted to “cast some forward light upon the dark, inscrutable mysteries of the future.” He toasted them:

Here’s to 1942, here’s to a year of toil—a year of struggle and peril, and a long step forward towards victory. May we all come through safe and with honour.

Let us take courage today from those words and resolve to embrace the coming year with perseverance and honor. (One great way to enter this important year is with a donation to your Judicial Watch.)

Happy New Year!

Until next week,